Upstairs at the Square: AIMEE MANN + JOSEPH O'NEILL July 31, 2008

NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 30 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, today announced the next event in its buzzed-about series, “Upstairs at the Square,” held at the Union Square Barnes & Noble in Manhattan (33 East 17th Street at Union Square). On Thursday, July 31st, at 7 pm, Aimee Mann, whose new album is @#%&*! Smilers (SuperEgo), and Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland (Pantheon, May 2008), discuss and perform their work in conversation with journalist Katherine Lanpher, who hosts the program. Admission is free, and no tickets are required. Seating is available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Aimee Mann (www.aimeemann.com) songs have a literary quality to them – sharp, spare short stories set to music. From her work in the 80s with MTV favorite ’Til Tuesday, through her acclaimed solo discs Whatever and I’m With Stupid in the 90s, Aimee Mann has always been at the forefront of contemporary songwriters. The close of the millennium brought her breakout success, with the simultaneous releases of Bachelor No. 2 and the soundtrack to the film Magnolia, which garnered nominations for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and three Grammys. With a songcraft often compared with the Beatles and Badfinger, Mann frequently pairs the bleakest of poetry with soaring, infectious melodies. Mann continued her solo career with the 2002 release of Lost in Space the second release on her own SuperEgo Records. In 2006 Mann released The Forgotten Arm, a critically acclaimed concept album that follows the story of two lovers who meet at the Virginia State Fair. Aimee Mann also released a Christmas album titled One More Drifter In The Snow. Her new album, @#%&*! Smilers, has been released to rave reviews, including five stars from MOJO, which pronounced it, “a masterpiece from a songwriter who’s quietly chronicling the blanched last days of a sunshine empire.” NPR noted, “Mann has carved out a presence as a consistently top-shelf chronicler of human desires and failings... [@#%&*! Smilers is] another look at dark and eccentric characters, complete with introspective looks at heartbreak, fading hope, and even Virginia carnivals.”

In The New York Times Book Review, Dwight Garner called Netherland, “the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell. On a micro level, it’s about a couple and their young son living in Lower Manhattan when the planes hit, and about the event’s rippling emotional aftermath in their lives. On a macro level, it’s about nearly everything: family, politics, identity. I devoured it in three thirsty gulps, gulps that satisfied a craving I didn’t know I had.” The New Yorker noted that “Netherland has opened where The Great Gatsby ends.” Joseph O’Neill was born in Ireland and raised primarily in Holland. He received a law degree from Cambridge University and worked as a barrister in London. He writes regularly for The Atlantic Monthly and is the author of two previous novels, This Is the Life and The Breezes, and a family history, Blood-Dark-Track, which was a New York Times Notable Book. He lives with his family in New York City.

Katherine Lanpher (www.katherinelanpher.com) is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist. Springboard Press published her first book, Leap Days.

“Upstairs at the Square,” which celebrated its two-year anniversary this June, has paired authors such as William Gibson, Tom Wolfe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, David Lynch, Anna Gavalda, Min Jin Lee, and Armistead Maupin with musicians including Craig Finn, Duncan Sheik and members of the cast of Spring Awakening, Badly Drawn Boy, Sondre Lerche, Au Revoir Simone, Nicole Atkins, Martha Wainwright and more. An archive of recordings is available on Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com/upstairs), where “Upstairs at the Square” is enjoyed by listeners around the world in addition to its live audiences.

About Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 800 bookstores in 50 states. The company is the nation’s top bookseller in quality, and for the fifth year in a row, the top bookseller brand, as determined by a combination of the brand’s performance on familiarity, quality, and purchase intent, according to the EquiTrend® Brand Study by Harris Interactive®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web’s largest e-commerce sites.

General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company’s corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.